When Tesco bought the website names tescocompare.co.uk and tescocompare.com in March 2007 it was perhaps with half an eye on the floatation of finance comparison site moneysupermarket.com. The Chester-based moneysupermarket eventually went public at a price some £200m less than expected but that won't stop Tesco seeing the potential in this market.

Tesco has already released a gas and electricity site called tescoenergy.co.uk and it's own property website called tescopropertymarket.co.uk (ed: snappy name!) where home sellers can advertise their properties for only £150. The internet already has a number of price comparison sites including gocompare.co.uk, compareplus.co.uk and clickcompare.co.uk, so the market potential is already evident and Tesco may simplying be jumping on a bandwagen that is already full.